So after seeing like 43923 frozen orb wizards (and lucking out and rolling a mirror ball), I decided to go try a Fire Wizard build. There seems to be a lot of items that help out fire damage, so why not try to use it? I'm not posting this build here to take credit for it (I've seen similar mirrorball threads in this forum alone), I'm posting it because I feel like I defn have room for improvement and can use some ideas. I'll list what my build is first and what the idea is, and then what the problems are that I'm running into.
I don't have insane OP gear, and in general I'm a defensive minded player, so I don't want to go full balls to the wall glass cannon (I tried getting rid of mirror image and slow time, replaced it with sparkflint and energy armor, I didn't really like the result). As a result I LOVE the near perma stun you can achieve with this build vs elite packs while you do DPS at a safe distance, while packing quite the punch.
Note: In the build I have in mind, mirror ball is the linchpin!
Gameplay (currently): Really simple. Most white packs you can pew pew away with ease with magic missile/conlagarate, when elites come up or when being overrun -- Pop Mirror images with the duplicates rune and run behind them. Enemies should all be stunned (for daaaaaays!!!) and you drop a meteor on their heads as you continue to pew pew away. Teleport as needed to get out of sticky situations, in the event you take more than 15% damage in a hit (likely) illusionists refreshes Mirror Immages/Slow Time/Teleport so you can continue to stun and kite with ease.
Problems I'm running into:
1. By far the biggest annoyance are the fire skills avail to Wiz. Meteor has a 15s cooldown in the rune that I'm using, as it does by far the most damage. My magic missiles + mirrorball basically do more damage than most other fire skills the wizard has so it's not worth it. This means I basically have no use for my arcane power at all, which seems like a waste. Is there a better fire skill that's a better choice which I can spam rather than be cooldown based?
I tried force of will, I don't plan to stay that close to enemies so that's probably a better skill for melee wizards. Same with explosive blast. Hydra you cannot spam. Arcane Orb with the fire rune has a very weird mechanic and feels awkward. I'm out of ideas...
2. The "End Game" gear. So far I have Mirrorball and Magefist, which is a solid start. I probably want cindercoat as well if I can find it. But I don't know what's a good 1H weapon I should aim for (whereas I'd aim for azurewrath if I was running frozen orbs). Any other critical +fire damage and/or +meteor damage legendary you guys think will really benefit this build?
Devastator weapon, 1H mace, so slower harder hits than swords for example, that also rolls %15-%20 fire dmg and firebirds set piece source for another 15-20% fire dmg. That's what I can think of off the top of my head.
Paragon points stacked into cooldown and you could roll it on gear + maybe a set bonus that'll give it too to be able to spam meteor faster. I had about the same Idea but lack the gear to do so.
Why are you running elemental exposure? You can only get fire damage out to get 5% of the maximum 20%. Kind of a waste of a passive here. I know how you feel about not being able to spend arcane power. Your alternative in a build like this is to run Explosive Blast: Chain Reaction, Meteor: Meteor Shower, or Energy Twister: Gale Force. The Arcane Orb: Scorch ability is god awful to say the least. To help with your Meteor: Molten Impact you can run Black Hole: Blazar to get them grouped up long enough for the impact to hit and get off some or most of the DoT from the meteor.
Another alternative you can try to spend arcane power if it really bothers you that much is Wave of Force: Heat Wave. This ability scales even better with APOC and resource cost reduction. While the Meteor: Molten Impact route benefits a good bit from CDR.
i'm using meteor shower / conflagrate / blazar / buffs...
i don't have mirrorball yet, but i'm facerolling t2, everything dies with 2-3 casts of meteor shower, and bosses melt if they hit box is big enough, with mirrorball my dps will increase I believe (i use firebird offhand)
now i want a good cindercoat and i'm set for the endgame
1. So I think I misunderstood what Elemental exposure does, I thought that if you keep hitting enemies with the same element the passive will stack, so if you hit with 4 fire skills the 5th will do 20% damage. Now that I read again, it seems like it will only stack if I use a different element... thanks for pointing it out! Reasonable replacement will be glass cannon/dominance/unstable anomaly/unwavering will. I'll try all and see how it feels.
2. Meteor shower rune I tried, currently my 1H weapon is pretty awful so although I cover the entire screen in meteors with my clones and I, not too many things die. I needed a skill that does OOMPH!!!
3. Really considered black hole but then what do I take out? Meteor, my main "ace in the hole?" I can't take teleport out that's asking for death. Mirror Image/Slow time is for the stuns. Magic weapon perhaps? Is black hole better than the 20% damage buff? I'll try it!
4. Can you name specefic legendary 1H fire damage weapons so my 1 track mind can embark on this never ending hunt lol.
If Teleport is "make or break" for you dying or not, you need to explore an option of getting more toughness. Mirror Images is good for getting you out of stuff like Jailer and Frozen. But if those things are killing you instantly, then yes its a problem. Either grab some more toughness where you can or lower your difficulty. Ideally if you objective is to obtain gear, you should be farming on the highest difficulty possible while not sacrificing your efficiency. Make sure you're not spending more than a couple of seconds on elite packs. If Meteor: Molten Impact isn't pretty much 1-shotting the elites, you're on a difficulty that is too high for your gear/weapon. I know you said you have a low damage weapon right now, so that may be your main issue at hand. Since crafting was changed and a lot more accessible, if you have the pattern for either of the %fire weapons, look to craft those.
1) Molten Impact is a very nice support spell for Mirrorball wizards, indeed. Meteor Shower has slightly more DPS but comes with the disadvantage of "randomness"; Ghom has an insanely large hitbox which is why it performed so good, for most rift bosses Molten Impact might actually be better. But in most situations and "lots of enemies" as you describe it, Meteor Shower might actually be the one spender you're looking for that is a decent spender. If mobs are wide spread, Meteor Shower hits more of them than MM and therefore might actually be better than MM only. So - here's your spender. I personally use Wave of Force just because I like its mechanics, if you're surrounded by mobs it is an improvement over MM, too. But from what you wrote I guess that's not an option.
2) Cindercoat is actually not a must-have for this build. My Cindercoat is a level 69 "meh" roll, while I have a quite decent Vyr's chest; I might deal ~5% more fire damage with my Cindercoat, but since you literally will never have AP issues (as your AP generator is your main damage spell) you don't need the legendary affix of Cindercoat. If you have a decent one you should use it of course, but you can safely ignore the fire skills resource cost reduction. Magefist are nice, so is an Axe of Burning Sankis or Devastator, Firebird's source, Andariel's Visage, and amulet/bracers with fire damage. You might wanna stack MM damage on belt and pants though, if possible.
May I ask why you're using Elemental Exposure? Seems like a total waste since you're on a single element build.
As I said before, my current gear isn't all that great currently I'm working on upgrading. My unbuffed sheet DPS is 295k and toughness around 3.4 mil, simply said I can do T1 being reasonably comfortable as long as I use a little finesse. Although wallers is like a hard counter to my build as it blocks my magic missles, so they take longer to kill. But all of that is gear dependent. I'm still trying to work on the playstyle and "build" part. So on the advice I received so far, here's what I'm trying: 1. Swapped out Elemental exposure to Arcane Dynamo. Sadly, despite shooting 3 missiles at a time the passive only procs once, but a 60% increase on meteor/meteor shower is not bad. Thinking about just going with glass cannon instead for the passive and kite more effectively. 2. Swapped Molten Impact on meteor to Meteor Shower, most fun thing about the wiz (for me) is his ability to spam!.The 15s CD just makes it feel icky.Ditto for black hole. If black hole was a high AP consuming skill like meteor it would've been AMAZING for this build... black hole (the fire rune) --> Meteor (molten Impact) --> Pop Mirror images with taunt, hide behind them as they throw up slow time and then pew pew pew anyone who survived the initial burst!
3. I can usually stutter-step and auto attack well enough to not really need to use teleport, and I can take a few hits without dying. Still, I'm not quite ready to get rid of my security blanket yet!
Note: I tried the black hole + meteor + mirror images + slow time + auto attack combo, however I do SIGNIFICANTLY less dps without magic weapon's 20% bonus weapon's damage buff (especially since most of my DPS comes from magic missiles). It feels nice though!
Here's the build I have in mind:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#aPQkgS!ZRed!ccZZYZ
I don't have insane OP gear, and in general I'm a defensive minded player, so I don't want to go full balls to the wall glass cannon (I tried getting rid of mirror image and slow time, replaced it with sparkflint and energy armor, I didn't really like the result). As a result I LOVE the near perma stun you can achieve with this build vs elite packs while you do DPS at a safe distance, while packing quite the punch.
Note: In the build I have in mind, mirror ball is the linchpin!
Gameplay (currently): Really simple. Most white packs you can pew pew away with ease with magic missile/conlagarate, when elites come up or when being overrun -- Pop Mirror images with the duplicates rune and run behind them. Enemies should all be stunned (for daaaaaays!!!) and you drop a meteor on their heads as you continue to pew pew away. Teleport as needed to get out of sticky situations, in the event you take more than 15% damage in a hit (likely) illusionists refreshes Mirror Immages/Slow Time/Teleport so you can continue to stun and kite with ease.
Problems I'm running into:
1. By far the biggest annoyance are the fire skills avail to Wiz. Meteor has a 15s cooldown in the rune that I'm using, as it does by far the most damage. My magic missiles + mirrorball basically do more damage than most other fire skills the wizard has so it's not worth it. This means I basically have no use for my arcane power at all, which seems like a waste. Is there a better fire skill that's a better choice which I can spam rather than be cooldown based?
I tried force of will, I don't plan to stay that close to enemies so that's probably a better skill for melee wizards. Same with explosive blast. Hydra you cannot spam. Arcane Orb with the fire rune has a very weird mechanic and feels awkward. I'm out of ideas...
2. The "End Game" gear. So far I have Mirrorball and Magefist, which is a solid start. I probably want cindercoat as well if I can find it. But I don't know what's a good 1H weapon I should aim for (whereas I'd aim for azurewrath if I was running frozen orbs). Any other critical +fire damage and/or +meteor damage legendary you guys think will really benefit this build?
Thanks for any input in advance!
Paragon points stacked into cooldown and you could roll it on gear + maybe a set bonus that'll give it too to be able to spam meteor faster. I had about the same Idea but lack the gear to do so.
#72 US Wizards in Vanilla D3 - Aranoch#1167
Another alternative you can try to spend arcane power if it really bothers you that much is Wave of Force: Heat Wave. This ability scales even better with APOC and resource cost reduction. While the Meteor: Molten Impact route benefits a good bit from CDR.
i don't have mirrorball yet, but i'm facerolling t2, everything dies with 2-3 casts of meteor shower, and bosses melt if they hit box is big enough, with mirrorball my dps will increase I believe (i use firebird offhand)
now i want a good cindercoat and i'm set for the endgame
2. Meteor shower rune I tried, currently my 1H weapon is pretty awful so although I cover the entire screen in meteors with my clones and I, not too many things die. I needed a skill that does OOMPH!!!
3. Really considered black hole but then what do I take out? Meteor, my main "ace in the hole?" I can't take teleport out that's asking for death. Mirror Image/Slow time is for the stuns. Magic weapon perhaps? Is black hole better than the 20% damage buff? I'll try it!
4. Can you name specefic legendary 1H fire damage weapons so my 1 track mind can embark on this never ending hunt lol.
I posted results of Mirrorball+fire DPS tests already in this other thread which you might have seen I guess, but just for reference:
http://www.diablofans.com/forums/diablo-iii-class-forums/wizard-the-ancient-repositories/83709-build-mirrorball-fire-wizard?comment=7
1) Molten Impact is a very nice support spell for Mirrorball wizards, indeed. Meteor Shower has slightly more DPS but comes with the disadvantage of "randomness"; Ghom has an insanely large hitbox which is why it performed so good, for most rift bosses Molten Impact might actually be better. But in most situations and "lots of enemies" as you describe it, Meteor Shower might actually be the one spender you're looking for that is a decent spender. If mobs are wide spread, Meteor Shower hits more of them than MM and therefore might actually be better than MM only. So - here's your spender. I personally use Wave of Force just because I like its mechanics, if you're surrounded by mobs it is an improvement over MM, too. But from what you wrote I guess that's not an option.
2) Cindercoat is actually not a must-have for this build. My Cindercoat is a level 69 "meh" roll, while I have a quite decent Vyr's chest; I might deal ~5% more fire damage with my Cindercoat, but since you literally will never have AP issues (as your AP generator is your main damage spell) you don't need the legendary affix of Cindercoat. If you have a decent one you should use it of course, but you can safely ignore the fire skills resource cost reduction. Magefist are nice, so is an Axe of Burning Sankis or Devastator, Firebird's source, Andariel's Visage, and amulet/bracers with fire damage. You might wanna stack MM damage on belt and pants though, if possible.
May I ask why you're using Elemental Exposure? Seems like a total waste since you're on a single element build.
But all of that is gear dependent. I'm still trying to work on the playstyle and "build" part. So on the advice I received so far, here's what I'm trying:
1. Swapped out Elemental exposure to Arcane Dynamo. Sadly, despite shooting 3 missiles at a time the passive only procs once, but a 60% increase on meteor/meteor shower is not bad. Thinking about just going with glass cannon instead for the passive and kite more effectively.
2. Swapped Molten Impact on meteor to Meteor Shower, most fun thing about the wiz (for me) is his ability to spam!.The 15s CD just makes it feel icky.Ditto for black hole. If black hole was a high AP consuming skill like meteor it would've been AMAZING for this build... black hole (the fire rune) --> Meteor (molten Impact) --> Pop Mirror images with taunt, hide behind them as they throw up slow time and then pew pew pew anyone who survived the initial burst!
3. I can usually stutter-step and auto attack well enough to not really need to use teleport, and I can take a few hits without dying. Still, I'm not quite ready to get rid of my security blanket yet!
Note: I tried the black hole + meteor + mirror images + slow time + auto attack combo, however I do SIGNIFICANTLY less dps without magic weapon's 20% bonus weapon's damage buff (especially since most of my DPS comes from magic missiles). It feels nice though!